Friday, January 27, 2012

We Heard You Missed Us, We're Back

As you've likely noticed, there has been less posting in the past week.

Why?

More gaming.

When I started this blog, I was running one game. Now my cup runneth over; I'm running a couple of games and playing in a couple.

It's a good time to be alive.

Anyway, I might as well give you something useful. Here's a random creature, straight from The Random Esoteric Creature Generator. Statistics are included in three formats for your viewing pleasure.

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Huitzilla

The Huitzilla is a strange-looking creature. It is a spheroid roughly three feet in diameter, covered in pink feathers with black spots. Two lashing pseudopods emerge from its form, one bearing a beak and the other bearing an eye. It primarily attacks with its bite, but will also bash prey with its eyestalk.

In their territory, packs of Huitzillas will angrily roll across the countryside in search of prey, and they will basically eat anything.

Scholars are not certain when the huitzillas first appeared, but common lore suggests they were magical experiments created by the now-extinct Olman Empire. Their reverence for the hummingbird was quite clear, and it is obvious they sought to infuse some creature with its characteristics. A theory among some scholars is that the creatures are a crossbreed of hummingbird and beholder.

Whatever the case, huitzillas are apparently self-perpetuating pack hunters, capable of breeding. They are much feared for their ability to eat anything, roaming the landscape like feathered tumbleweeds in search of prey.

The somewhat comical-looking huitzillas are a threat only rarely encountered in the wilds of Central America and northern South America. Despite their strange appearance — one observer described them as "something Hunter Thompson and Pelé dreamed up on acid, after watching too much Star Trek" — they are feared by the few who know of them.

The spherical huitzillas — a portmanteau of "huitzilin," the Nahuatl word for "hummingbird," and "kujira," the Japanese word for "whale" (although it's probably just a reference to "Godzilla") — hunt in packs (sometimes as large as eight individuals) and move by rolling. One tendril bears the mouth while the other bears a single eye; these tend to remain stationary while the rest of the organism rolls toward prey.

Their origin is unknown, though some explorers swear they are found more readily near the sites of ruins. Awakened scholars state that many have been found near Atlantean ruins, suggesting an origin among mages, possibly Atlantean refugees who fled to Central America.

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So there. Figure out some way to use that in your game. And now, as the title suggests, Van Halen will play us out: